Karnataka cabinet expansion: A look at the 24 MLAs who will be sworn in today

Twenty-one of the 31 districts have been represented in the cabinet

ITDC INDIA EPRESS/ ITDC NEWS : Karnataka will have a full-fledged cabinet with 34 ministers, with 24 new ministers being inducted on Saturday. Exactly a week after the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar took oath of office along with eight other ministers, the party picked 24 more ministers, who will be taking oath on Saturday at Rajbhavan.

The party leadership held elaborate discussions with both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar who lobbied hard to secure a cabinet berth for their loyalists. With the party going for a mix of old and new faces, there has been resentment among senior leaders like R.V. Deshpande, Basavaraj Rayareddi, Tanveer Sait, N.A. Haris, Saleem Ahmed, T.B. Jayachandra, B.K. Hariprasad, Prakash Rathod and Ajay Singh who have been denied a berth.

Partyhopper Laxman Savadi, who quit the BJP on being denied a ticket from Athani and won the seat on a Congress ticket, was excluded from the cabinet. Savadi's exit from the saffron party was said to be a major factor in mobilising Lingayat votes in favour of the Congress.

With this expansion, the representation of Lingayat community in the state cabinet is seven, Vokkaliga 5, SC 6, ST 3, OBC 6, Muslim 2, and one each to Brahmin, Jain, Maratha and Christian. Twenty-one of the 31 districts have been represented in the cabinet.

The party choosing former legislator N.S. Boseraju has upset the senior leaders and MLCs including Leader of the Opposition in Council B.K. Hariprasad and KPCC's Saleem Ahmed. As per the norms, Boseraju, who is not a member of either House, needs to get elected within six months to the Upper House after which he would become the leader of the House.

Laxmi Hebbalkar is a two-time MLA from Belagavi Rural constituency, who has served as the state women's Congress chief. A close aide of KPCC chief Shivakumar, Hebbalkar belongs to the Panchamasali Lingayat community. This time, she fought hard to retain her seat in a prestige battle with her political rival and BJP MLA from Gokak Ramesh Jarkiholi, who had vowed to defeat her and aggressively campaigned for BJP's Nagesh Manolkar. In a triangular fight between the two national parties and the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti, Hebbalkar won with a margin of 54,000 votes.